Upset with Public School System (Page 2)

The private school my brother went to booted kids who had behavior or any other disruptive issues. My friend's kid has learning and bahavior impairments and was told his kid was too disruptive and they 'couldn't give him what he needed'.  That may absolutely be true. The school might very well not have the qualified teachers/aides/whatever that would best suit a particular child's needs. Multiple impairments are difficult to deal with.

However, it still comes down to the fact that a private school has the luxury of not being required to address some kids' issues.  They are able, by law, to 'get rid of the problem'. They are able to pick and choose, to the degree that they have enough operating budget, what kids they will serve and which they won't. Each school has its own guidelines, etc., but they are not required to take in everyone who comes along. 

Public schools do not have this luxury. They are required by federal and state law to create programs, provide teachers/aides/whatever to provide an appropriate education whether or not they have what they consider enough budget to provide it. Public schools have to figure it out. Private ones are not required to.

School vouchers would go along way in helping. They have been used in limited amounts throughout the nation and been successful. Amazingly people like Jessie Jackson & Obama don't like them - even though they work.

I understand that everyone can't or even would want to go to a private school.

Just to clarify - I didn't state anywhere that private educated people are more/less intelligent that publicly educated. What I stated is that there are countless examples of problems at publicly run schools.

Look at the Chicago Public School system - a bureaucratic mess that waste more money than it spends properly.

Children who require one-on-one counseling do to bad behavior is a huge cost to tax payers. Private schools would have to pass this on to the people paying tuition.

Private schools save local & federal governments BILLIONS of dollars nationwide. In Chicago alone if the Catholic & other private schools all closed and sent their children to public schools the system could not handle the extra load of students.

For some reason there is a group of people who despise public schools - however eveyone's taxes would go up without them.


FYI - I have gone to Catholic school & a public University and my children go to public school.

I talked with my client and this is what worked wonders for her daughter. Check it out.

http://irlen.com/index.php

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Aces,

I agree with a lot of what you say; many public schools are better equipped to handle kids with special needs - because they have been mandated to handle these types of issues.   What I think you see a lot in the private setting is the parents meet those needs by supplementing outside of the public school setting -so they pay even more...just for full disclosure, we homeschool one kid and send the other kid to a private High School.   We tried public school and just couldn't do it.

Here is the deal with public education (as I see it).  Most all parents think their kids are the exception versus the example.    I keep hearing all this fight for this, fight for that...Whether its special needs or redistricting...many complain, put up a stink and then the board gives in...taxes go up but performance does not.   In most cases, the parents have a real issue they are trying to solve and their child needs help, I get that...I just don't think its always up to the taxpayer to come thru for everyone's needs...

Ultimately, your child's education is up to YOU, not a public school, not a private school but you.   If you think your child has an issue, YOU take them for special testing.    Don't wait..each of us know our kids the best.   If your child isn't performing, its YOUR problem.   You are best equipped to identify and solve the problem. 

Question for you Aces since we're on the topic, and a generally opinion is fine.

Having a son with Asperger's who has all of 1 friend in school currently we are concerned about sending him to the HS in the next town (our town doesn't have it's own HS) because we are worried about how he will fit in, get picked on, stand out, etc. We are looking at the Catholic HS (we're Christian, not catholic) because it seems to provide a more controlled environment, structure, etc and he would "fit in" wearing the same uniform as everyone else. What are your initial thoughts on this?

Lani

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At least in CA, the voucher issue has gone away.
The pro-voucher people have put their support behind alternatively run schools, mostly charters.
The reasons for this are simple.

1. The vouchers are not enough to cover the cost of the better private schools.
2. Private schools run less on regulation, and more on free markets. Which, in turn, leads to greater variance in quality and price.

Based on these two facts, you can then break potential private school consumers into three basic groups.

A - Those that already attend private schools, or at least have the means to.... The voucher program is basically a rebate for them. However, this leaves less public education money for the same population of students. (Same amount of money - the vouchers (rebates) for kids already attending)

B - Those on the bubble. Their kids can get accepted, but they are just shy of being able to afford a quality private school.  It could potentially give them the boost they need/want to send their student to a private school. As individuals, this group stands the most to benefit.  As a group, they will never benefit as much as Group A. Vouchers are marketed to sound like the money is going to this group, but most of it really goes to Group A.

C - Those that still would not be able to afford and/or get accepted to a private school that is better than their public school even with vouchers. This group is left with two choices. 1 - Stay in their public school (which, if they are poor or inner-city, probably is not that great) or try one of the lower-quality private schools (If a voucher program gets started, you are likely to see "fly-by-nights" that charge, coincidentally, the same amount as the voucher.) Remember, if vouchers kick in, there is a spike in demand.

Whereas, with the charter school movement, the politics and financial bottom-line to the tax-payer is better than vouchers.
However, they still run the same problem with variance.
The top 10 performing public schools in California has over-representation of charters (good).
The worst 10 performing public schools in California has over-representation of charters (bad).

This article gives an example of such a fly-by-night operation.
Which really is not fly-by-night, it is well-designed to maximize profit.
Despite how much they suck, they still get students solely on, "we are not the horrible public school" (ahem, we are worse...)
(I have first-hand experience with how this program screws up kids' education.)
It is dated, but the performance is actually WORSE now, because the article was written BEFORE the CA High School Exit Examination, and there was nothing stopping them from being a credit mill like there is now.


The best proposal I have seen is from a business professor at UCLA, Dr. Ouchi.
Basically,
1 - Give greater fiscal control to the school's themselves. (No Child Left Behind does the opposite.)
2 - Give parents greater control to change to any school they want. (I.E. if you suck, you lose all of your students and money -- not even tenure can save your job)
3 - Fund on a weighted system, the more difficult to teach give you more funding. (All of a sudden, the autistic kid becomes a prized student, if you know how to handle him correctly.)

This would require one important step.
You would need to shift identification of the higher-weighted funding students to an independent body and away from the district's new financial conflict of interest.

It is simpler, cost-efficient, and has some fairly compelling data and research to back it up.

I did my dissertation on NCLB at UCLA, and Dr. Ouchi can show national data to back this up.


Edited by eabeam 2009-11-11 4:26 PM

Aces - thank you. He doesn't really have special education needs, other than he would forget his head if it wasn't attached Other than panic attacks during standardized testing he does fine in school (we make sure he gets all the work done).

He isn't "thrilled" about the uniform idea as he prefers sweats on a daily basis (hates pants with buttons/snaps/zippers) He could care less about fitting in, but he is also quite naive and an easy target for bullies, etc.

Appreciate the feedback. Confirms our inclinations at this point.

Welcome to the club no one wants to join!

Since you are here, first, you need to write a letter requesting an IEP or a section 504 meeting.  Your school system will have a certain amount of time to respond.  At this meeting, you need to request/demand that they test your daughter.  They will have approx. 60 SCHOOL DAYS (not calendar days) to complete the testing (varies from district to district).  Then you will meet again.  Here is the kicker.  The testing needs to show that her disability has an EDUCATIONAL IMPACT.  If she is reading at grade level, they DO NOT have to provide services.  I know, to us as parents, of course this disability has an educational impact.  But, if she is testing at grade level, they are not required to give her any services.  Sucks but it is how the law is written.

Keep in mind, the school does not have to accept your private testing you had done.  They are only required to 'consider' it.  If their testing does not show dyslexia, they might not accept your diagnosis. 

My best advice is to educate yourselves as much as possible.  The special education system is a tricky one full of loopholes.

Update?

  Sorry it has taken so long, been busy.  The school added my daughter to the list and the "official" board to decide what to do to help her is set for the 17th.
  The school counselor referred us to a group that specializes in Orton-Gillingham tutors.  This sounded expensive at first but they put us in contact with a 17 year special ed teacher that has finished her Masters and is trying to finish her certification in O-G.  This works out well as she cannot charge the full fee yet and still has all the training in the program.  We had our first tutor session last night and the woman expressed that my daughter is definately at the higher level (see does not have as bad a problem as many) and would love to work with her to get her up to par.
  This works out to 20 dollars and hour vice 65-100 for her services.  SHe gave us some good tips to get started, I let er know the areas Maggie seems to have problems with, and we set our next meeting for Thursday.  They will be meeting 2 times per week at the library.  This is nice because I can take my two other daughters there to read, do puzzles, etc. while they do their sessions.
  Will let you know what comes out of the school meeting once it is done.  Thanks to all for the info.  My wife thought it was odd that I would ask the question on a Triathlon board, I told her that she obviously doesn't listen to me when I tell her that this is a good resource for all things, not just Triathlons.
  On that note, I did some thinking and realized that this is actually a grreat resource when it comes to finding info.  Yes, we get to voice our opinions but with the wide variety of people that are involved in Triathlon, we have almost all areas covered, by either current or past situations.  Thanks again to all.

Scott

I find it flippin' amazing the huge body of knowledge that is BT.

Minor hijack... I hope that this is not against the rules, I am not making any money off of this...


I am actually working on setting up an "Ask the educational psychologist" blog.
Although I will not give specific advice, I want to give advice to parents and educators on many common issues...
For example, I will expand on my "When you need - how to choose an advocate" post as one.

The  current delay is that I am approaching several mainstream media outlets to sponsor me (again for outreach, not to get paid).
If they fall through, I will just use a personal blog site and use viral marketing.

If you are interested, my "official" updates will be as Drericbeam (or dr.ericbeam? I cannot check at work) on twitter and Eric Beam on facebook until then... (The Eric Beam with my face pic is the professional one, the pics with my kids is my personal one.)

I was thinking about this thread the other day.

I understand that this is a different state.
However, I am extremely concerned that they are saying that this is a "board" issue.

Is it possible that this is a "team" meeting of some kind and not the board?
Are you invited?


It would be one thing if we are talking a major expenditure like residential school or a one-on-one aide, but eligibility?

If they really mean the School Board, this is not passing the smell test.

The day has passed.. Any news?

Yes, I should be taking care of my students, but I thought about you today.

Hi NavyTRIChief -- late to the party here, but if you end up having to go with any expensive private therapy, it's worth asking several providers how they handle insurance. Many don't deal with insurance at all (it's as much of a headache for providers as it is for patients), but some are immensely creative at finding ways to get things paid for. 

Let us know how you and your daughter are doing.

I'm also late to the party, but wanted to add that from your original post it sounds like you were mostly mad about the 3 year delay.

1-2 months is not a long time for the school to take to go through the process of addressing your child's needs and I think the fact that things are moving now should give you some reassurance. Bringing your anger over the 3 year wait to the table now will be counter productive.

ETA: I'm way late to the party. Hope things are going well.

I'll also add that it took 17 years and my parents doing it privately to have me formally diagnosed with ADHD. I showed all the signs, but did not get into illegal activities or very disruptive activities at school so it was never addressed in High school.

I'll also add that part of the delay is that I went to a small private school for elementary/middle school and my mother worked closely with my teachers to ensure that they worked with me and gave me the attention I needed. Because the class sizes were so small it was possible to get that individualized attention and I didn't need meds. But my parent's went nearly broke trying to keep me in that school. When I started there in 1st grade is was a couple thousand dollars. When I left after 8th grade, tuition was over $7000.00 (more then I paid for college tuition) and by the time I was in college my elementary school was charging close to $14,000.00 a year. Or more then double what I paid for college tuition.

When I reached High School I performed much worse and really needed extra attention. My parents struggled for 3 years to get something done. By the time they did it privately there was no point in getting an IEP as I was half way through my senior year. I was on meds in college and didn't really need anything else. Although I could have asked for accommodations if I thought I needed them, or that they would help.


Edited by graceful_dave 2010-01-13 10:38 AM